'Safer road would honour councillor's legacy'

Councillors have voted to lower the speed limit to 40mph on a stretch of road where a safety campaigner was killed.

The motion, unanimously backed by the Selby and Ainsty area committee of North Yorkshire Council, also called for average speed cameras on the A19 at either end of Riccall village.

Former parish and Selby district councillor John Michael Duggan died in a crash on 1 August, after spending decades calling for such a limit.

His daughter, Judy Mitchinson, had told the meeting on Friday: "Making necessary safety improvements now will save lives in the future."

The motion will next be presented to the North Yorkshire Council executive.

"John was a former HGV driver and knew the dangers of the road better than most," Ms Mitchinson said.

"The biggest regret of his life was that he did not achieve a roundabout."

Allan McVeigh, North Yorkshire Council's head of highways network strategy, said none of the junctions in Riccall had been a "collision cluster site" in the previous five years, based on the number of crashes resulting in a serious injury or death.

As such, changes such as a roundabout or traffic signals, proposed by Riccall Parish Council and campaign group the Riccall Roads Action Group, were not being considered currently.

He also raised concern that such developments could increase the risk of "shunt-type collisions".

"Available funding should only ever be targeted where it is needed most," he said.

Mr McVeigh noted the proposed 40mph speed limit went against government guidance, and had not been supported by North Yorkshire Police.

The case of nearby Deighton, another village on the A19, was raised by campaigner Sue Golton.

She said a 40mph zone was introduced there in 2013 by City of York Council, despite a lack of support from police, who "said it couldn't be enforced".

"Is safety really a postcode lottery? Because it is certainly beginning to feel like it," she said.

The Labour MP for Selby and Kippax, Keir Mather, told the meeting: "Guidance is guidance. It needs to be tested."

He said Mr Duggan, who he had known, set "a very strong example for us all".

"I'm really pleased that the council are working constructively with local people in Riccall to put in some common-sense improvements for road safety," Mather later told the BBC.

"What we want to really do is to encourage them to go further and to make sure that we're exploring all the opportunities to make this road as safe as possible."

He said "real change" would "honour [Mr Duggan's] legacy".

North Yorkshire Council's executive member for transport, Malcolm Taylor, said the geography of the county, with 6,000 miles of roads, was a big challenge when it came to improvements.

"Those roads are everything from the A19 to the roads up in the Dales and Moors," he said.

He added that the authority tried to meet the challenge "with the finance available", but that there was "not enough money, essentially".

However, he pledged to work with the community to reach a "positive outcome, from a very negative situation".

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